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development of detective fiction “indicates its global promise” (Rzepka, 9), the genre is manifestly characterized by “its regional diversity,” as Cawelti observes (8). In other words, detective fiction today isn’t merely “internationalized;”F4F it has gone “glocalized,” a term Roland Robertson uses to refer to “a global outlook adapted to local conditions” (“Glocalization,” 28).F.5F Therefore, in this dissertation, I will try to treat the detective fiction genre both globally and locally.
II. About Macherey and the Intention of this Dissertation
Pierre Macherey (1938-) is a major French deconstructionist/Marxist. First, following a
deconstructive line of thinking, Macherey throws extreme discredit on structure and focuses on the unsaid of a literary text. For Macherey, an author is sure to leave a lot of things unsaid, and the unsaid is precisely the reason why a literary text exists. (It is as if an author keeps saying the quote from the 2001 movie, Don’t Say A Word, “I’ll never tell…any of you (readers)!”) In addition, the unsaid is tantamount to narrative ruptures, or the fractures beneath the surface of a seemly coherent structure in the literary text. Above all, the unsaid is closely associated with the historical context as well as the ideology. It is at this point where the Machereyan theorizations intersect with Marxism, or the Althusserian Marxism, to be more exact. As an apprentice of Louis Althusser, Macherey and Althusser see eye to eye with each other on the conceptions of ideology. Therefore, the Althusserian concepts of ideology figure prominently in Macherey’s literary theories. On the other hand,Althusser also draws on Macherey’s theorizations when explicating the relationship between literature and ideology. For instance, in his “Letter on Art in Reply to André Daspre,” Althusser first asserts that art “does have a quite particular and specific relationship with ideology” (201).
Then in characterizing the nature of this “particular and specific relationship,” Althusser further argues,
4 Cawelti elaborates on the internationalization of the detective fiction genre, “Actually, in the 1930s and 1940s two important developments began to undercut the detective story’s Anglo-American ethnocentricity. Writers in other countries, such Georges Simenon in Belgium and France, Edogawa Rampo in Japan, and Arthur W. Upfield in Australia…Also in the 1930s and 1940s the quest for new kinds of detectives led to the development of a rich galaxy non-English detectives created in large part by English and American writers,” such as Earl Derr Biggers’ Charlie Chan.
See Cawelti, 9-10.
5 According to The Oxford Dictionary of New Words, the term “glocal” originally refers to an agricultural technique of adapting one’s farming strategies to local conditions. Then during the 1980’s, it gradually became a marketing
buzzword, the tailoring and advertising goods and services on a global basis to increasingly differentiated local and particular markets. See “glocal,” The Oxford Dictionary of New Words, 1991 ed.
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What art makes us see, and therefore gives us in the form of ‘seeing,’ ‘perceiving’
and ‘feeling’…is the ideology from which it is born, in which it bathes, from which it detaches itself as art, and to which it alludes. Macherey has shown this very clearly in the case of Tolstoy, by extending Lenin’s analyses…[Art gives us] a view which presupposes a retreat, an internal distantiation from the very ideology from which their novels emerged. They make us perceive…in some sense from the inside, by an internal distance, the very ideology in which they are held. (Lenin and Philosophy,
and Other Essays, 222-3)
Inspired by Macherey’s reading of Tolstoy (, which I shall delve into in Chapter Three), Althusser states that there is an “internal distance” between art and ideology. That is, while art originates from ideology, the former doesn’t truthfully mirror the latter. Instead, the former, from a distance, enables us to perceive the latter. In addition, as for the latter, Althusser asserts that it “slides into all human activity” and is “identical with the ‘lived’ experience of human existence itself…This ‘lived
experience is not a given, given by pure ‘reality,’ but the spontaneous ‘lived experience’ of ideology in its peculiar relationship to the real” (223). By “pure reality,” Althusser, roughly speaking, refers to a big word, “history.” That is, Althusser informs us that ideology or the human lived experience is not given by history but has a peculiar relationship with it.
By and large, Macherey’s literary theories combine both deconstruction and Marxism. Plenty of theorists navigating along the two lines of thought reference Marcherey more or less, whether they approve of him or not. For instance, in Radical Tragedy Jonathan Dollimore explicitly references Macherey when invoking “new criteria for exploring the relationship of literature to its historical context” (5, 272). Secondly, Tony Bennett, in Formalism and Tragedy, gives credit to Macherey and reminds us “to take account of the historical determinations which bear on both the text’s production and its consumption” (98), though his skepticism of Macherey’s literary theories does manifest itself.
On the other hand, Macherey seems to take a rather negative attitude towards detective fiction.
For example, in A Theory of Literary Production, he states,
All the literature of the mysterious illustrates a similar doctrine. From the heroines of
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Mrs. Radcliffe to Sherlock Holmes, one finds, in a degenerate form, though with unsurpassed clarity, this novelistic meditation upon the treachery of appearances, the very theme of the moral-critical judgment. Once the enigma has been resolved the real meaning leaps out from behind the screen of all the intermediate episodes. The artifices of narration are merely the vehicle for a procrastinated anecdote. (19)
Here, Macherey’s scorn for detective fiction is most obvious; he thinks of detective fiction as a
“degenerate form” because it is no more than a procrastination of the revelation of the truth.
Beneath its treacherous appearance is a mere moral-critical judgment at its very best.
However, Macherey’s reference to Mrs. Radcliffe or Sherlock Holmes clearly indicates that he exclusively targets the so-called “classical detective fiction” in impugning the detective fiction genre. But as I’ve stated previously, classical detective fiction is merely the prototype of this extremely complex and multifaceted genre. It is at this point where I think ample dialogical space may be opened up between Macherey and the detective fiction genre: as Macherey has gained insights into the defects of classical detective fiction, the genre, more or less, evolved into
hard-boiled or postmodern detective fiction because certain fundamental faults of classical detective fiction had to be redressed. In this respect, Macherey and the evolution of this genre seem to be on the same tract, which, in other words, seems like a promising point of departure or a solid rationale.
With such an observation in mind, I hereby set the course of this dissertation: with a
Machereyan reading, the narrative ruptures in Poe’s detective stories will be located. Then I will follow the developmental trajectory of the detective fiction genre to examine how these unsaid(s) or fractures have been said or repaired.
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Chapter Two: Poe and the Detective Fiction Genre
Through his investigations the detective retrieves the hidden story of the crime so that he is finally able to mediate it in his detailed narrative discourse.
Peter Hühn, “The Politics of Secrecy and Publicity,” 40.
Trinity: Neo! No one has ever done anything like this! Neo: That’s why it’s going to work!
The Matrix (1998)
I. The Definition of Detective Fiction
Before I launch my research enterprise, I feel the need to clarify the definition of detective fiction in order to adjust my dialectical focus. In Talking About Detective Fiction, P. D. James thinks a detective novel should have “a central mysterious crime, usually murder; a closed circle of
suspects…a detective, either amateur or professional…and, by the end of the book, a solution which the reader should be able to arrive at by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with deceptive cunning but essential fairness” (9). Clearly, James’ definition targets classical detective fiction more than hard-boiled or postmodern detective fiction, as James herself states that such a definition “now seems unduly restrictive and more appropriate to” classical detective stories (9).
Likewise, R. Austin Freeman, apparently under the influence of detective fiction as well, points out the defining attribute of detective fiction, “an intellectual satisfaction” it offers to readers, or an entertainment which is actually “an exhibition of mental gymnastics in which he [a reader] is invited to take part.” Of course, such a satisfaction or an entertainment must come from an
argument which “is conditional on the complete establishment of the data” or free from “fallacies of reasoning” (“The Art of the Detective Story,” 11-3, italics mine). Freeman’s focus is on the
detective’s logical investigation, namely, how the detective logically deduces the truth from a heap of clues and solves the mystery.
In their attempts to define detective fiction, both James and Freeman emphasize the logical inference, considering it a sure way to the solution of a case. Condensing their definitions, we can tentatively define detective fiction this way: a novel in which a detective solves a crime by
employing logical reasoning. Elaborate as this definition may seem, it is confined in the tradition of
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classical detective fiction. Howard Haycraft, on the other hand, offers a somewhat looser definition,
“For the essential theme of the detective story is professional detection of crime. This is…the distinguishing element that makes it a detective story and sets it apart from its “cousins” in the puzzle family” (“Murder for Pleasure,” 160-1). Clearly, Haycraft substitutes “professional detection of crime” for James’ so-called “logical deductions from clues” or Freeman’s so-called “logical methods.” This somewhat flexible term can cover both classical detectives’ logical inferences and hard-boiled or postmodern detectives’ investigative techniques. That is, Haycraft has come up with a definition with a coverage of the whole genre.
As if following Haycraft’s definition, George N. Dove lists “the four identifiable qualities” of detective fiction: first, “a detective” or “an identifiable detection role;” second, “the account of investigation and resolution;” third, “a complex mystery that appears impossible of solution;”
finally, the solution “known to the reader” (The Reader and the Detective Story, 10). Besides, Ernst Kaemmel points out, “In the course of its development, the detective novel became concentrated very quickly upon portraying a (fictional) detective’s solution of a murder or another capital crime in a fictional plot.” Thus, detective fiction can be differentiated from criminal reportage, or any other novelistic subgenre (“Literature under the Table,” 57). That is, Kaemmel adds one more crucial qualification for detective fiction: fictionality.
Here I shall combine these critics’ viewpoints into one single, functional definition: a detective novel refers to a fictional story that deals thematically with a crime as well as how it is solved by a detective or someone like a detective.
Now, let’s put the workability of this definition to a test. First, it seems that this definition can enable us to clarify the niceties among these terms: a mystery is a story in which strange things happen that are not explained until the end (“mystery.” Def. 1092. Collins Cobuild English
Dictionary,1997, 2
nd ed.). On the other hand, a thriller is a book, film, or play that tells an exciting fictional story about something such as criminal activities or spying (“thriller.” Def. 1742 CollinsCobuild English Dictionary, 1997, 2
nd ed.). Clearly, both the terms are a lot broader and may overstep the boundary of detective fiction. What’s more, the distinction between the crime novel‧ 國
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and the detective novel should be more noteworthy: “the crime novel tells the story of a crime,
[while] the detective novel [tells] the solution of a crime…In the crime novel, the criminal is
presented to the reader before the crime is…In the detective novel, on the other hand, the sequence is reversed” (Alewyn, “The Origin of the Detective Novel,” 64, italics mine). In a way, the crime novel is quite the opposite to the detective novel. It “lives up to its name by violating a basic convention of mystery and detective fiction; it tells the story from the point of view of the perpetrator－the pursued criminal becomes the main protagonist” (Malmgren, “The Pursuit of Crime,” 160).It’s time that we went over several instances. Let’s start with Poe. Poe’s “The Gold-Bug” (1843) is often grouped with his three detective stories because it is also a story characterized by a process of analytical reasoning. “The Gold-Bug” describes how William Legrand uses his reasoning skills to decode a cryptogram and finds a hidden treasure. However, Haycraft doesn’t think of it as a detective story because “every shred of the evidence on which Legrand’s brilliant deductions are based is withheld from the reader until after the solution is disclosed” (164). Well, I think Haycraft is right about refusing to qualify “The Gold-Bug” as a detective story. But I find the grounds on which he does so rather unconvincing. After all, in some detective stories, especially hard-boiled ones, it is possible that some clues may remain withheld until the very end. According to the definition of detective fiction given above, “The Gold-Bug” is not a detective story simply because a hidden treasure does not constitute any crime! As for another story of Poe’s, “Thou Art the Man”
(1844), Dorothy Sayers thinks that in this story Poe “achieved the fusion of the two distinct genres and created what we may call the story mystery, as distinct from pure detection on the one hand and pure horror on the other” (“The Omnibus of Crime,” 73). Sayers seems to imply that “Thou Art the Man” is a mystery rather than a detective story. Haycraft, on the other hand, thinks this story
“comes much closer structurally to qualifying than “The Gold Bug.” But here again it is the concealment of essential evidence…that rules the story out of court” (164). At this point, I think Haycraft is right, for “Thou Art the Man” doesn’t offer readers any clues to the solution of the crime, which means that the investigation of the crime, or how the crime is solved, is not thematicized at
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all! In conclusion, neither “The Gold-Bug” nor “Thou Art the Man” is a detective story. They fall into the category of the mystery or the thriller. Therefore, at best, they can only be used to
instantiate Poe’s portrayal of ratiocination or his presentation of a crime (, which is also what I intend to do in the later chapters).
Then, let’s move on to Wilkie Collins, a detective story writer who was clearly influenced by Poe. Some critics, such as Haycraft, think of his The Woman in White (1860) as a mystery rather than a detective novel. However, Julian Symons, in Mortal Consequences, insists that it be treated as a detective novel on the grounds that it is a crime story (44). Well, it is true that the protagonist in
“The Woman in White” employs some detective skills every now and then. However, this novel doesn’t have a case that occupies a thematically central place, based on which I shall concur with Haycraft and disagree with Symons. As for Collins’ The Moonstone (1868), it has both a case (the theft of the moonstone) and a detective (Franklin Blake), who conducts an investigation and solves the case. So it certainly qualifies a detective novel. (In fact, a lot of detective fiction fans have voted
The Moonstone as one of the top 100 detective novels in the world! In addition, T. S. Eliot regards The Moonstone as “the first and the greatest of English detective novels” (“Wilkie Collins and
Dickens,” Selected Essays, 464).) It’s the same case with another novel of Collins’, The Law andthe Lady (1875). This epistolary novel describes how Valeria (the detective) conducts an
investigation to exonerate her husband from the accusation of poisoning his ex-wife.
Charles Dickens is also worthy of our attention. Willard Huntington Wright (S. S. Van Dine) thinks of his 1853 Bleak House as “England’s first authentic contribution to detective fiction,”
though it “contains many elements which to-day would not be tolerated in a strict detective story…”
In addition, for Wright Dickens’ unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood is “a straight-away detective story which might almost be used as a model for this type of fiction” (“The Great
Detective Stories,” 44). While taking notice of the detective elements in both the novels, Wright also seems to have certain reservation about regarding them as detective novels. Indeed, Bleak
House lacks a central case in its convoluted plot, though it does have a detective, Inspector Bucket,
who Wright thinks “deserves to rank with Dupin and the famous fictional sleuths who came after”‧ 國
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(44). As for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, we do not know if it centers on the murder of Edwin Drood because it is unfinished. In addition, the murder case in this novel remains unsolved, so we are uncertain whether it has a detective (, or to be more exact, whether one of its characters can play the part as a detective).
Let’s go over several more recent examples. Some critics, such as Justine Tally, notices that in Toni Morrison’s 1992 novel, Jazz, “a voice of the narrator is an imitation of hard-boiled fiction”
(The Story of Jazz, 32). Such an observation may lead them to believe that it is a detective novel, now that it also revolves around a murder. Jazz does thematicize a murder, and as the story unfolds, readers come to perceive the perpetrator’s motive. However, it neither has the role of a detective nor a proper investigation. Hence, it shouldn’t be classified as a detective novel.
Woody Allen’s recent film, Magic in the Moonlight (2014), tells a story about how a magician is called upon to investigate an alleged fraud of a female spiritualist, in the course of which he gradually falls for her. In this film, the magician plays the part as a detective, launching a proper investigation. Above all, the case is cracked in the end. Therefore, Magic in the Moonlight fits the definition of a detective story, while movie critics tend to view it as a romantic comedy. Another cinematic example is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). As we know, there have been a number of psychoanalytical interpretations of this horror film. On the other hand, if we take a close look at its story, we’ll see that it does centralize a case (a missing secretary, Marion, who embezzles 40000$
from her office). And two of the characters, Lila (Marion’s sister) and Sam (Marion’s boyfriend), look into this case together and learn the truth (, though their so-called “investigation” only involves questioning the local sheriff and sneaking into the Bates Motel). Therefore, it is fair to say that
Psycho fits the loosest definition of detective fiction.
II. Poe’s Place in the History of the Detective Genre
A clarified, functional definition of detective fiction can also help us do more historical tracings, and above all, ascertain Poe’s place in the history of the detective fiction genre. First, Macherey points out in “For A Theory of Literary Reproduction:”
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The notion of an original work succumbs to this splitting:…Except in a dream, one never writes on a completely blank page: the execution of a text necessarily relies on the reproduction of prior texts, to which it implicitly or explicitly refers…One writes on the written, that is, on top of it the palimpsest…defines the very essence of the literary…(In A Materialist Way, 48-9)
Macherey thinks that every literary text must be created under the influence of certain prior texts;
therefore, it must be a reproduction. In Chapter I, we have gone through some of the literary works created prior to Poe. Here, I intend to go through more of them; above all, with this definition, I intend to find out if they are examples or counterexamples of detective fiction. By so doing, we’ll know where Poe fits in with the history of the detective fiction genre. First, as mentioned in Chapter I, Poe’s detective stories were created against the background of “criminal narratives,” a term Worthington uses in her The Rise of the Detective in Early Nineteenth-Century Popular Fiction (6).
As the name suggests, this term refers to any criminal-related writings, such as The Newgate
Calendar, Newgate fiction, or fiction like Samuel Danforth’s Cry of Sodom (1674), which was
published on the occasion of Benjamin Goad’s execution for bestiality and “grew out of anAs the name suggests, this term refers to any criminal-related writings, such as The Newgate